


Clexa ABC Drabbles

by misha_collins_butt



Series: ABC Drabbles [2]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: ABC Drabbles, Alcohol, Angst, Bekka Pramheda - Freeform, Child Lexa, Clexa, Drinking, F/F, Finn is mentioned, Fluff, Gun Violence, Post-Praimfaya, Praimfaya, Profound, Reunion, Spoilers, Suicide, Talking about finn, The Flame - Freeform, alphabet prompts, casual nudity, clarke/lexa - Freeform, clexa au, lots of hypotheticals, the 100 au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-03
Updated: 2018-12-05
Packaged: 2019-09-06 03:25:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 26
Words: 15,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16824157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misha_collins_butt/pseuds/misha_collins_butt
Summary: Work summary: basically a good portion of these are just AU's where Lexa didn't die and things I think happen in those in-between spaces in canon when we don't see what some people are doing. This is the first time I've ever written about a canon relationship so I beg, please do cut me some slack. I cannot promise these will all be amazing.





	1. Aliens

"Where do you think they'd be from?" Clarke questions, letting her fingers sift through the sand. 

Lexa keeps her gaze on the bright, afternoon sky and shakes her head, hair sweeping across her back.

"I don't think they'd be from this solar system," she replies, finally glancing back down. Clarke watches her thoughtfully, little upward quirk of her lip. "I think they'd be from somewhere very far away. I don't think they'd like it here. Our sun is small compared to others."

Lexa's knowledge of the universe has exceeded Clarke's expectations by leaps and bounds. She has no idea how the grounders still know so much about space despite the fact that not a single one has been there, save for Becca, the original Commander.

She assumes they must have some ancient records buried somewhere, maybe school books from before.

Clarke nods in agreement. At this point, she thinks Lexa might know more than she does.

"What would they even look like?" Clarke wonders aloud, to no one in particular. She examines the crystalline sand cliffdiving between her fingers. "What if they look like us?"

Lexa's grey eyes twinkle at her. In optimism? In amusement? In fright?

No, Lexa's not afraid of anything. Nothing that Clarke can imagine.

"I think they'd look like something none of us could have imagined," Lexa replies and returns her gaze to the heavens. "I think humans have always tried to rationalise things, compartmentalise...we can only picture things that we _hope_ they'd look like. But in reality, there are so many things we haven't imagined they look like. Because we don't know enough about the universe still. We try to trick ourselves into believing we are knowledgeable enough to make an educated guess, but...we're really just scared of the idea that there's something out there that we can't recognise."

Sometimes, Clarke forgets how smart Lexa is. Sometimes, she forgets that just because she was born in space and grew up using technology the grounders could only dream of, that doesn't mean she's any the wiser.

Clarke shifts into a crooked smile.

To Lexa, she _is_ the alien. Yet Lexa accepted her with warm arms all the same. 

So whatever these hypothetical aliens look like, she doesn't think it'll matter much. Because there'll be people like Lexa to welcome them. 

A sweet smile goes a long way.


	2. Berries

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lexa pulls a prank

They've been out for an hour or two already, collecting herbs, stopping to show each other cool flowers and make the other smell it and then putting the smaller ones in their hair. 

The sun today is blazing, tinting Clarke's hair a deep, brownish orange. As Lexa watches it flop across Clarke's shoulders, she zones out, which results in her not processing that Clarke has stopped dead in her tracks.

Lexa stumbles into Clarke, who only glances back peevedly. 

"Look," she points to a deep green field a few yards ahead. With a sly smile, she looks back again and asks, "Wanna pick some berries?"

Lexa grins and walks, hand in hand with Clarke, to the berry bushes. 

Clarke seems disappointed when they reach the first ripe fruit. She plucks it from its home and examines it carefully, frowning, maybe confused.

"I've never seen a berry like this," she mutters. "I don't know if these are safe to--"

Before the blonde woman can finish her thought, Lexa pops one in her mouth, chews audaciously, and swallows. 

Clarke's eyes grow bigger than the moon, lips parting in horror.

Lexa begins gagging and coughing, holding her throat as though she can't breathe, and sinking to the ground, which throws Clarke into doctor mode. 

"Lexa!" She cries, and leaps for the kneeling commander. "It's okay we're gonna fix this, okay? You'll be okay."

And just as Clarke is helping her up to rush her back to the village, Lexa lets out a laugh, bending down from the force of it. She feels Clarke back away and snorts as she looks up. 

"You should see the look on your face," Lexa giggles, plastering a hand over her mouth to hide her shit eating grin. "They're mutated blackberries!"

"You bitch!" Clarke shouts, hands balling into fists. "That's not funny, Lexa, I thought you were dying!"

"Awww, I'm sorry," Lexa continues to giggle, but reaches up to cup Clarke's cheek, a goal which evades her efforts.

"You don't get to touch me right now. I'm mad at you," Clarke announces, then turns on her heel and storms away.

Still laughing, Lexa calls after her, "Love you! See you at dinner!" 


	3. Creep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lexa's POV of the 100 landing on Earth

She watched that day, weeks ago, as they scrambled out from the strange, metallic meteor. She was hidden in the bushes, painted to resemble the greenery, where she'd rushed to the moment that the thing landed.

The entire village had seen the exchange between the mysterious machine in the sky and the planet below it - a bright, sparkling orb ejected from one end and becoming a blaze of brilliant fire as it entered the atmosphere. She could tell, then, that it would land somewhere nearby. 

So she ordered her soldiers to start heading toward the possible landing site. And she went off alone. Snuck off, really. Her second wouldn't be happy knowing she'd gone on by herself. 

She rode for at least two miles until, from between the tree tops, she spotted in the leaking sky a pillar of smoke fifty yards ahead. She could smell it - it didn't smell like anything she'd known before.

She took refuge in the thick bushes at the edges of the machine's footprint and watched as the door opened, heart skipping beats, and when the door hit the ground, she felt her jaw drop.

Humans. They were humans. Just like herself. 

The first one - a scrawny girl with long, dark hair, and slender eyes - made her slow way down to the grass. And when she smiled, the rest of them flooded out like bees from a hive. 

That's the first time Lexa saw her. The one they call Clarke. She was one of the last ones to stumble out of the machine, eyes wide and mouth gaping in astonishment. 

She still can't figure out why they seemed so surprised. She hasn't made a move to talk to them yet. She's wary of newcomers, those that are not aware of her rule. 

But she's tried to contact Clarke a variety of ways. The blonde woman seems different, more perceptive. Clarke has almost caught her a few times, following her through the woods, squeezing behind trees and crouching in bushes to remain out of sight.

She hasn't stopped watching since they landed. She's been hesitant to send her own soldiers to find out more information. She doesn't know how dangerous the rest of them are.

If only she could get up the courage to talk to Clarke.


	4. Dress

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Birthday fun

"I think it suits you," Clarke leans back and crosses her arms over her chest, watching the other woman closely. "It's...regal."

Lexa rolls her eyes in the mirror and twists her sceptical look back at Clarke.

"I'm a Commander, Clarke, not a princess. I don't _do_ regal," she snipes, then returns her apprehensions to the slightly cracked, full length mirror in front of her, spreading the skirt out. "This is impractical for battle."

Clarke sighs dramatically and pushes herself out of the chair.

"Lexa, this isn't a _battle_ , this is your birthday party," she chides, approaching the other woman from behind and wrapping her arms around Lexa's waist, chin to shoulder. "You deserve to feel beautiful, not ready to fight."

Lexa's eyes meet Clarke's in the mirror in their grey, ironically regal way. A whisper of a smile touches the corners of Lexa's lips.

"I'm the Commander. I'm always ready to fight," she says, voice hushed. She looks back into her own eyes, which fade to a solemn silver hue. "I have to be."

Clarke watches her silently, brows knitting together. She releases Lexa's waist and replaces her hands on Lexa's shoulders, then turns the Commander around to hold her face gently.

"Not today," Clarke mumbles, brushing an escaped strand of hair back from Lexa's face. "Today, you are going to let yourself feel good. Starting with the dress."

"Tell me what's so great about the dress," Lexa insists, tilting her head and cocking a brow dubiously. 

Clarke smiles back and replies, "Well, for one, you look amazing in it. And maybe it'll show your people a softer side of you without it feeling like you're losing your influence." She pauses, sliding her hand downward to the knee length hem of the front of the dress and beneath it, then sliding it slowly up over Lexa's thigh, eyes never moving from Lexa's. She adds suggestively, "And of course...easy access."

Lexa's lips part as she realises where this is going and Clarke smirks graciously, leaning their foreheads together.

She lets her hand wander between Lexa's legs and relishes in Lexa's gasp when her fingers trace the delicate outer lips of her labia. She presses her mouth to Lexa's neck, teeth skimming flushed skin, and Lexa's nails dig into her spine.

Just as Clarke moves to slip a finger in, Lexa breathes out timidly, "Clarke."

She pulls away to look Lexa in the eyes, finding enormous pupils and bitten lips.

"Hm?" 

"The door is open," Lexa snickers, and Clarke breathes in sharply and whips around to go close it. Lexa's voice floats dreamily across the room, "It's almost like you _want_ to get caught."

As Clarke locks the door, she smirks again.

Behind her, the sound of Lexa's dress dropping to the floor in a pile of fabric steals the breath from her lungs.

She feels Lexa's hand slither around her waist and the other sneaks beneath her shirt to grip her breast.

Today might be Lexa's birthday, but they'll be celebrating for the both of them.


	5. Excelsior

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Informational banter

"Dragons don't exist," Clarke squints at Lexa, who only smiles micheivously at the skins on the table that she's been sewing. "They're myths. Just like the Ancient Greek gods and goddesses."

Lexa turns the deerskin pants sideways to sew the inseam and replies, "Sure they're real. Plenty of people have seen them and it's not as if stranger things haven't happened."

"Oh, god," Clarke groans, throwing her head back. "Next you're going to tell me you think leprechauns and mermaids are real, too."

"Why can't they be?" 

"Because it's evolutionarily impossible!" Clarke exclaims, incredulous smile bending her teeth. 

"Clarke, just because you were taught one way these things are meant to look, that doesn't mean they look exactly that way," Lexa explains patiently. "Dragons do exist on this Earth, they just don't look the way you expect them to."

"If it doesn't look like a dragon, then it's not a dragon," Clarke snaps back derisively. 

Lexa laughs with dewy rose cheeks and crinkled eyes, and says, "That's the black and white attitude I expect from you. Let me explain something to you," she finishes the inseam and ties it off, then turns to Clarke. "The world ended, Clarke. Society as our ancestors knew it was stripped away in a matter of minutes. They had to build a new life from scratch. Cultures, races, gender, money - none of it meant anything anymore. Those were all social constructs. So as people rebuilt together, their stories and mythology and folklore all got mixed together and then when the animals started mutating, some of those myths were twisted to fit reality. Things like dragons and faeries and mermaids were completely redefined. Because some things came so close to being what we thought those myths were, so instead of setting ridiculous, meaningless standards, we simply put words to the things that most closely described them."

Clarke's eyebrows sink low over her blue eyes like a cloudy sun setting over the whimsical sea. She bites her lip. Looks up at Lexa.

"What about unicorns?"

Lexa laughs again, a full body laugh that leaves Clarke grinning.

"I'm sure they're out there somewhere," Lexa answers, then rests her hand on Clarke's cheek and kisses her nose delicately. "I doubt they're too friendly, though."

"I'm guessing nobody's ever ridden a dragon," Clarke muses, cracking a smirk as she turns her head down to the translation paper in front of her that started the discussion. The word dragon peers back up at her, along with its translation to Trigedasleng. 

_Excelsioraus_.

"They don't actually fly, so no, not really," Lexa replies, returning to her pants. "They leap from treetop to treetop, and they're up to fifty feet long and eight feet around at the thickest parts. They have six legs and scales, and...horns and sharp teeth. But they don't breathe fire and they don't have wings. Basically they're just mutated comodo lizards."

Clarke nods, trying to recall her ancient animals classes. Some of them were so absurd, she never retained the information, thinking she'd have no use for it.

She hated school on The Ark. It was all earth science and earth history and earth this and that. There was no motivation.

But, for Lexa, she'll learn anything.


	6. Flank

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Body worship

Lexa watches Clarke's bare back stretch and shift with her deep inhale. The messy blonde pieces of hair fall off her shoulder as she turns her head back to pull her brows down low at Lexa.

"What are you doing?" She mumbles, still sated from their late night exercise. 

Lexa smiles softly back, keeping her eyes on her hands, which are smoothing over the backs of Clarke's thighs. 

"I like this view," she whispers, pressing fingers ever so slightly into the fleshy underside of Clarke's butt. "You have this crude grace about you. Strong legs," she pauses, bending in to leave a kiss on Clarke's left buttcheek. "And an _amazing_ ass."

Clarke snorts into the pillow.

"I can't believe you just said 'ass,'" Clarke throws back, words soaked in laughter. "Maybe I'm a bad influence."

"You are," Lexa replies flatly, resting her cheek on the squishy hill of Clarke's butt and wrapping her arms around Clarke's legs. "But that's a good thing."

Clarke just breathes for a while and Lexa thinks she's fallen asleep, but then, a pillow-muffled voice rasps back, "Do you have your face on my butt?"

Lexa grins and nods, making Clarke laugh again. 

She starts to turn over, so Lexa rolls away and crawls to the head of the bed.

Clarke watches her thoughtfully and, with a sly smile, says, "I am so not letting you kiss my mouth again until you wash yours."

"It's your own butt. And it was just the cheek."

"A butt is a butt."

"That's fair," Lexa sighs, and settles for a forehead kiss instead. "Goodnight, _Wanheda_."

The last thing she hears before drifting off is Clarke murmuring against her hair, "I love your ass, too."


	7. Gash

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yes, both meanings of 'gash' apply here

Lexa hisses in a breath when the alcohol pad touches the ungodly cut in her ribs. Clarke glances up apologetically and mumbles a "sorry". She braces her other hand on Lexa's waist to keep the girl from flinching away so much.

"Don't apologise. If my people saw me like this..." Lexa trails off, shame in the shadows between her words. 

"It's just us, Lexa," Clarke replies, tongue shallow in her teeth, a giddy flutter in each muscle. "There's no need to be tough. It's okay."

"Is it?" Lexa's eyes follow Clarke's movements, looking down at her from atop her regal posture. "I'm a Commander. Commanders aren't weak."

Clarke tries to hold her words at bay, she really does, but they come rushing forward anyway: "You're also a human. Being a Commander doesn't have to mean pretending the human part doesn't exist."

To her relief, Lexa doesn't bite back. In fact, Clarke finds softness in her eyes.

She refocuses on the black liquid dripping from an almost obscene gash just below Lexa's bottom right rib.

"You're going to need stitches," she mumbles, setting down the alcohol pad. "I don't have any numbing with me."

Lexa nods resolvedly and takes in a long, steadying breath.

The first stitch causes her to yelp and screw her eyes shut. Clarke understands the pain of a tiny needle pricking through damaged, un-numbed tissue. More agonising even than receiving the wound that needs the stitches.

She pauses to give Lexa a moment to prepare. Lexa breathes and nods again, ever noble.

Clarke goes on, piercing and tying and cutting. After the first four, Lexa stops flinching. Seven more, and it's done, and Clarke is turning to dispose of the used needle and thread, and Lexa is grabbing her wrist to keep Clarke's hand on her waist.

Clarke pauses again, this time to look back at Lexa, whose lips part slowly.

It had been awkward between them since that first kiss, days ago. Clarke has barely looked her in the eye, much less, until today, sat in a room alone with her, Lexa topless, Clarke's hand on her waist.

So, instinctively, Clarke wants to recoil, hide herself from the thoughtful gaze of this beautiful, brown-haired woman. 

Unbelievably, she doesn't. 

Instead, she drops the used items on the table behind her and leans up to press her lips tentatively to Lexa's.

Lexa doesn't protest. In fact, she seems to excitedly propel forward to meet Clarke halfway. 

And Clarke isn't sure who initiates it, but the kiss turns desperate, and hands begin to wander, then lips along with them.

It's only when Clarke is unbuttoning her own pants that she realises what's happening, and falters, yanking herself away from the other woman.

"I'm...so sorry, I didn't--" Clarke starts frantically, but Lexa simply shakes her head and brushes her slender fingers back over Clarke's cheek.

"Don't be," she breathes out. Long silence. Then, stuttering, "Do...I mean, do you...um..."

It doesn't take a brain surgeon to understand what Lexa is trying to ask, and Clarke is literally a doctor.

"Do you want me to?" She responds with a shy, questioning smile and jumping eyebrows. 

Lexa nods slowly, fingers in Clarke's hair tugging her down once again. She doesn't resist.

It begins languidly, like how the sky gradually sucks the colours of the sun into the atmosphere every evening, so that it might be even more breathtaking.

But as Clarke crawls up between Lexa's thighs, a bent leg thrown over each shoulder, the only thing more breathtaking than the sunset is the view from her position of Lexa gasping and tilting her head back as Clarke runs her tongue up from Lexa's entrance to her clit. And the way Lexa tangles her fingers with Clarke's as she hangs her head against the wall and pants out curse words in Trigedasleng. And the way Lexa tastes, oh god, it's ascendant of the most magnificent sunset to ever grace the earth.

Clarke buries her tongue deep inside Lexa, trying and failing to pull her even closer, and Lexa is rolling her hips into it, and Clarke is so wet she's soaking through her underwear onto her thighs, and then Lexa is stammering that she's going to come and she does and she twitches, nails digging moons into Clarke's neck and arm. 

And when Clarke crouches and creeps upward, wiping her lips, Lexa seems lost in her quest to reclaim her ability to speak. So Clarke does it for her.

"Are you okay?" 

After a hard swallow, and a few breaths in, from Lexa's limp body comes a weak, "uh-huh."

Clarke snickers and cocks a brow, dubious.

"I don't think you are," she laughs. Leans down to kiss her lazily. "Is the Heda satisfied?"

"You...have no idea."

"Hmmm," Clarke hums against Lexa's jaw. "Glad to hear it. Guess what?"

"Huh?"

"You ripped your stitches," Clarke points with a smirk and Lexa swears, running her fingers against the cut. Clarke whispers teasingly, "Probably not a great idea to have sex right after you've gotten sewn up."

Lexa makes a face and wipes her blood on Clarke's cheek.

Clarke only smiles wider.


	8. Heat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just cute casual nudity bc I'm tired of WLW being sexualised c:

The past three days have been nothing less than utterly miserable. 

Clarke had learned on The Ark about seasons on Earth, across all seven continents. Some of the most disparaging ones occurred in North America. Extreme highs and lows, sun and heat one day and dry snow the next. 

She also learned about global warming. Just before the bombs went off, global warming was at its worst - unpredictable weather patterns, unstable temperatures, melting polar caps, egregious natural disasters, immense death tolls from pollution, and infant mortality rates in the millions. 

" _Too_ _many_ _people."_

That's what the hologram woman said. Clarke doesn't think that was the problem.

Clarke thinks it was greed. Greed that led to astronomical rates of extinction, greed that led to the invention of advanced AI, greed that led to the bombs, greed that led to her being sent down to Earth, greed that led to now. To her sitting by the river at high noon, bare ass naked with sweat streaming down her back like a damn waterfall.

She may be, she thinks, just as greedy. She could easily have stayed in the village to help prepare for the coming tragedy. She should have, actually. But she's hotter than she even knew a human could naturally get without getting sick and dropping dead.

So. Fucking. Hot.

But if she knows one thing for sure, she knows nobody else in that village would think to follow her out here.

Or maybe she's wrong.

The bushes about twenty feet behind her rustle for a second. She freezes, a stark contrast to the smoldering summer. Weighs the chances that it's just a harmless deer or the wind. 

Not the wind.

What sounds like bare foot steps approach her, crunching the rocky shore beneath the weight of a full grown adult.

She whips her head around, ready to hide herself or stumble over her words looking for a decent excuse as to why she's naked next to the water rather than helping the grounders. 

But it's the last person she expected to have the same idea as her - Lexa.

And she's just as naked as Clarke.

"Hi," Clarke greets her lamely. She doesn't know what the proper etiquette is in this situation. Mostly because she never imagined she'd be in it.

"It's okay, Clarke. It's just me," Lexa replies, seeming to read her mind. She takes a seat beside Clarke, pulling her legs up against her bare chest and wrapping elegant, battle scarred arms around her knees. "It's beautiful out here, isn't it?"

Clarke has to restrain herself from physically shaking her head in order to concentrate on answering.

Instead, she breathes in suddenly, and responds weakly, "Yeah."

Lexa looks at the side of her reddened face. 

Apparently, the view isn't nearly as interesting as the way Clarke is blushing uncontrollably. 

"Am I distracting you?" Lexa asks, obviously trying to hide the humour in her voice.

Clarke purses her lips inward and, heart skittering in her chest, answers, "You're very...attractive."

She sees Lexa smile in the periphery of her vision. It's heart-melting.

"Thank you," is all Lexa says in response. 

Then, after what seems like an eternity, Clarke feels something cover her hand, which is pressed against the shore to hold her up. She looks down at the sudden pressure.

Lexa's hand is on hers.

She lets a small smile seep into the corners of her lips.

She flips her hand and lets their fingers twist together. 

At least she's got someone to suffer with.


	9. Inherit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Idk don't look at me I thought it was a cute idea

Lexa breathes in sharply and sits up in bed. Rubs her eyes. Looks down to her right.

Clarke is still sound asleep beside her, blonde tendrils tangled and splayed about her head like a supernova. She's warm and snoring, arms spread wide. Lexa smiles.

She slips out of the bed and grabs her robe from the bedpost. It's her turn.

She follows the shrill noises down the hallway to the next room, where the door is already open. The night guard nods to her, apparently relieved. She can't blame them. They stay up all night anyway and on top of it have to suffer the screaming that they, themselves, cannot stop.

Lexa pads softly across the room to the caged bed against the window, where beige moonlight trickles in through the ethereal curtains and splashes against the grey bricks and fur rugs. 

She leans down and gently takes the little thing in her arms, cradling her against the chest that feeds her.

"Chit ste ta masser, ai Natblida?" She coos, brushing a finger over the tiny, greyish-pink cheek. _What_ _is_ _the_ _matter,_ _my_ _Nightblood?_

The little one's cries calm and then peter out as Lexa rocks her back and forth. 

She feels someone staring at the back of her head. Turns slowly, so as not to awaken the bundle in her arms.

"I didn't know if you needed any help," Clarke whispers, sleepy smile crossing her lips.

Lexa puts a finger against her own lips and tip toes back to the door. Carefully, she hands over the slumbering being. 

"She just wanted to be held," Lexa whispers back. "She's clingy, like you."

Clarke visibly tries not to snort at that. She knows Lexa is right. Instead, she kisses the little one's forehead, then Lexa's.

Murmurs, "You did a wonderful job, _ai_ _Heda_ ," then she wanders back to the crib, Lexa trailing behind her, and sets the child back down. She takes the raggedy stuffed animal toy from the corner and sets it beside their daughter's head.

And as Lexa rests her chin on Clarke's shoulder, arms around her waist, and Clarke leans her head against Lexa's, the brown haired woman adds softly, with awe-inspired hope in her voice, "And she will make a wonderful Commander."

She will be the first with both black and red blood.


	10. Jus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Somebody has a blood kink. (Honestly, me, it's me, I have a blood kink).

"Jus drein jus daun," Lexa breathes into Clarke's ear, eliciting a gasp. Lexa hums, dragging her blade across Clarke's bare stomach. 

Her skin in the light of the stars is milky and smooth, soft edges, save for the pink irritation on her wrists, which are tied together and to the bed frame. She quivers beneath Lexa, naked bodies exchanging heat and suspenseful goosebumps.

"Jus drein jus daun," Clarke repeats with hushed excitement. 

Lexa silences her with a rough kiss, probing tongue and nipping teeth. Clarke moans into her mouth. Lexa works her lips downward - jaw, neck, collarbones, sternum. She sucks each erect nipple into her mouth and gently bites down. Clarke is squirming, drawing angry marks where the knife rests against her side.

"Pentansh," Lexa chides, ghosting her hands over Clarke's ribs.

' _Patience.'_

Clarke obeys, but quiet-tinted whines still escape her throat every few seconds.

Lexa continues her path, dragging her lips down to Clarke's navel, where she blows cool air and leaves her teeth imprinted just below Clarke's belly button.

"Beja," Clarke whimpers when Lexa breathes out hotly against the skin just above her clit. "Ai Heda." 

' _Please_ , _my_ _Commander.'_

Lexa only slows herself even further, relishing in the way her lover begs. 

Clarke's blood is a ravishing shade of passionate red and her moan is a shade of purple that knits itself into the night sky. And Lexa's blade is just sharp enough to cut easily but just dull enough to make her feel it. And each time she digs into Clarke's perfect skin, the blonde woman throws her head back and pushes her hips up in pure lust.

And when Lexa finally presses her finger against Clarke's soaking labia, Clarke's toes curl under themselves and she bites her lip so hard she may just make _herself_ bleed.

Lexa enjoys the view, the way Clarke pushes into her hand, pleading for friction.

She teases circles around Clarke's entrance as she sets the knife aside. Bright blood is beading in the lines of multiple superficial wounds across Clarke's belly, so Lexa runs her tongue along each one, slowly, deliberately, until her mouth has found its way back to Clarke's breasts. 

Lexa plunges her finger into Clarke just as she takes a nipple between her teeth again and the sound Clarke makes is obscene.

She straightens up to see her work, sitting back on her haunches.

She allows the woman beneath her to rock herself on her finger, just watching for a moment with Clarke's legs spread open, one on each of Lexa's bent knees. It's one of the most enchanting views she's ever witnessed.

She adds a finger and bends them inward, assaulting Clarke's senses by leaning down to flick her tongue against the bundle of nerves at the top of Clarke's nethers, which only sends her fingers even deeper.

Clarke begins to tremour, calling out Lexa's name, and Lexa can feel her contracting around her fingers. 

She'd love to drag this out longer, make her little Skaikru toy beg for mercy, but she can't resist the way Clarke says her name, over and over again like a prayer.

She lets Clarke come, massaging the spot just two inches in that makes Clarke gasp for air until the quaking fades. Then, she crawls up to look her lover in the eyes and dips her fingers into Clarke's mouth, letting her taste herself.

"Ai hod yu in," Lexa mumbles as she begins the process of tenderly untying Clarke's hands.

Clarke closes her sated eyes, smiles loosely, and slurs, "Ai hod yu in, seintaim." 

' _I_ _love_ _you_ , _too.'_


	11. Keeper

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> CW for description of b*rfing

Clarke stares at the tiny silicon pod that sits on her bedside table.

She's layed out on her stomach, arms under her chin, singular pillow holding her up so she can space out at the table at the head of her bed.

She knows nothing is going to happen - it needs a host to be activated properly. A host with black blood. Which she only has artificially. Even then, her desperate mother smashed the radiation chamber, so she has no idea if it really works. 

She's been tempted. To turn it on and put it in her own neck. So tempted.

Lexa is in there. She saw her. Lexa saved her. 

Clarke has been too numb to cry, but she cries now, overwhelmed by the idea that she will never get to speak directly to Lexa again. Never get to hold her hand, or cuddle up to her at night, or kiss her lips, or feel her touch, or hear her voice, or see her eyes. 

All she has is the memory of Lexa, and memories are unreliable. They fade and morph and disappear. 

That's what she's most scared of - the memory of Lexa disappearing. It wrenches at her stomach.

She feels the nausea before she can register what it is. 

Clarke leans over the side of her bed and vomits into the bucket. She remembers to hold her hair back this time.

It's mostly clear, sort of an off-white orange tint. Stomach acid.

She hasn't eaten enough in the past 24 hours for there to be anything else. Just water. She feels too sick to eat. 

She's not, really. Sick, that is. Just anxious and angry and sad. And everything hurts.

She's not sure how her mother and friends would react to the fact that she's been puking her feelings. Probably with concern. They're always concerned. Even when there's no need to be. 

But she has to admit to herself that there may be reason this time. That this whole flame thing is taking a toll on her. That maybe she isn't cut out to carry the woman she loves around in her pockets. 

At the same time, she knows she can't just hand it off to someone else - she wouldn't trust even her own mother with this precious piece of human soul. 

So what other option is there, but to remain the Keeper of the Flame?


	12. Letters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bare with me, this is a long one, but I think this is my favourite.

They'd been exploring several times on their rare and brief breaks from managing the Trigedaskru, usually wandering around what little evidences of cities that survived, including parking garages and rotting skyscrapers whose shattered glass and creaking foundations have long been reclaimed by the earth.

Sometimes, they'd venture out of the forests of the mountains and discover houses that remain completely untouched by the tragedy of a dead world. 

To Clarke, it's always a little jarring to see that. She saw photos in school on The Ark, and learned a lot about how society used to work, what houses were and what they looked like, where people usually lived, stuff like that. But she was also taught that all of that was destroyed by the bombs, every last piece.

So to find something so intact is mildly...disturbing. Upsetting, almost. Seems so out of place.

Nevertheless, they go inside. Clarke figures this may be more common than she anticipated since there are a variety of 'rural' areas throughout the world where the bombs likely didn't affect much, save for the radiation and ash.

The first thing Clarke notices when they enter is how pristine the inside of the house is. Everything is in its place. There seems to be no signs of panic or struggle or even much human life at all. 

The second thing she notices is that there's no musky smell, like the kind that air-sealed dead bodies would have. On The Ark, she studied the effects of the practice of mummification on the human body. This is the perfect circumstance for such a process.

She doesn't find a body anywhere. Not even a pet dog.

"They must've been out of the house when the bombs hit," Clarke muses aloud. 

Lexa nods solemnly in agreement. 

After determining they are, in fact, alone, they decide to rummage - they almost always do, trying to make a competition out of it. Who can find the most interesting things. Rarely anything that used to have monetary value, since all of that is worthless now. But things that have sentimental value. Things people would save if there were a fire or a natural disaster. 

Photos, handmade blankets, family heirlooms, rock collections. Things people put love and passion and time into.

Everything in this house seems...technical. Unfeeling. Like these people didn't experience the joys of giving and loving. Maybe they were out of the house because they had enough time to move themselves to a bunker, along with anything they valued.

Just when Clarke is about it give up, from the closet of the master bedroom, she hears Lexa call to her.

"Clarke! Come here!"

She makes her way from a child's room on one side of the house to the master bedroom on the other side, running her hands on the walls as she walks and admiring the rustic beauty of the old bungalow. 

When she reaches the closet, she leans against the door frame and focuses on Lexa, who is on the carpeted floor, sitting back against the far wall, entranced by a piece of stained, yellowing paper in her hands.

Beside her rests a dull toolbox filled to the brim with similar papers, along with some photos and trinkets.

Lexa's eyes scan the page she's holding, apparently too immersed in the content of it to acknowledge Clarke, so the blonde woman ventures further into the closet and crouches next to the box. 

Digging through it, she finds a plethora of items that she assumes belonged to a woman.

There are two photos - one is a black and white picture of a dark-skinned woman with hair piled atop her head and wearing a dress that seems to be for a maid of some sort, holding a blanket clad baby whose skin is half as dark as hers, as she stands in front of a small wooden porch at the side of a large house and smiles warmly at the camera. The second, and only other photo, is in colour and of the same woman, several years older, sitting on a carpeted floor with a faded purple rug, leaning on her hand and sitting on her side with legs bent, in a small living room. She is smiling warmly again, this time looking up in admiration at a young boy, maybe six years old, standing on the rug and grinning ear to ear as he holds up a toy train for the camera. He seems to be the same child the woman was holding in the first picture.

The other items consist of a tube of bright red lipstick, which Clarke twists up and down with a curious smile, a dirty, worn, small blue blanket folded neatly, a simple pacifier made of periwinkle coloured plastic, and a short lock of black curly-q hair.

"They're love letters," Lexa says suddenly, reaching into the box and pulling out the next paper in the pile. "I think they're from a woman named Margie. That's what they're signed."

Clarke picks up the paper Lexa already read and finds loopy, scrawling hand writing. The opening line reads 'Dear Francis' and the sign off reads 'Love always, Margie'.

"This is dated October seventeenth, nineteen-forty-nine," Clarke observes. She tilts back the corner of the one Lexa is reading, which she doesn't seem to notice whatsoever. "November twentieth. Same year."

"The first one talked about their last night together in somewhere called Louisiana, and how much she misses him already," Lexa explains, finally looking up at Clarke. "This one is about how working for her boss has gotten harder because she's feeling more exhausted than usual. I think she was some kind of helper...she talks a lot about 'The Missus', whatever that means."

"She was a maid," Clarke responds, filling in the blanks. "On The Ark, we learned about the twentieth century, how the people with dark skin were made to take bad jobs serving people with light skin who didn't treat them well. She's probably talking about the woman of the house that she works for."

Lexa purses her lips outward and sets the paper facedown on the carpet. 

"Keep reading," Clarke gestures with a nod to the box, taking a seat beside Lexa with the letters and other items between them. "I think these are love letters. There's probably a whole story here."

Lexa smiles crookedly, eyes bright, and takes the next paper, dated December thirteenth. It's about how the woman, Margie, is beginning to suspect she is pregnant and that if she is, the man, Francis, is the father. She feels scared because the baby would be evidence of their interracial affair.

The next one is from January of the next year, nineteen-fifty. A confirmation that she is pregnant and that she's got a bump. She's hiding it from her bosses.

February's talks about work things and saving money for the baby. 

March's mentions that the money Francis sent is gracious and proof of his devotion. 

In April, Margie finds a small apartment above a store that the owner is willing to rent to her for cheap. She says she doesn't have much furniture but she's incredibly grateful for everything she does have, including Francis. She asks what Francis thinks they should name the baby. She doesn't know if it is a boy or girl, but she'll be happy either way. 

May doesn't receive a letter, but June garners two. One from the beginning of June, claiming she couldn't afford to write a letter in May because she was forced by her bosses to take unpaid pregnancy leave and she almost lost the apartment, but she made a deal with the store owner that she would work around the store for free if she could keep the apartment. 

The second letter from that month is dated June twenty-ninth. Margie tells Francis to welcome baby Hadley into the world, born on June twenty-second at three-fifty-three pm, weighing seven pounds and two ounces. She says the ladies at the salon across the street from her apartment want to help her take care of the baby, and that they offered everything from their own children's' used cribs to babysitting for free, to a new job at the salon cleaning things up for them for good pay. She writes that she enclosed a photo of her with the baby.

After that, letters are dated sporadically as opposed to one for every month. They seem to come when the child hits a milestone - first smile, first tooth, first steps, first words, first time she gets a full night of sleep, first day of school, first test. Over the first six years, she sends at least fifty updates, some attached to the packages that held her lipstick and the child's baby items. Once per year, she sends a letter about the boy's birthday celebration. 

One of the letters from when the child turned three is excited rambling about how he's finally given up the pacifier and she's included it with the letter. 

The lock of hair comes a few months before Hadley's first day of kindergarten when he gets his first haircut from the ladies at the hair salon. 

After the letter including the second photo of the six year old child, which is apparently the moment the photographer captured him opening his birthday present - the first one Margie was ever able to afford to buy for him - the letters become infrequent and short. Some chronicle the boy's days at school. Some, financial struggles. Others, how busy Margie has been at the salon, now that she's become their first black hairdresser. 

The final letter is dated September third, nineteen-sixty-three. 

All it says is, 'I am so happy our baby Hadley finally gets to meet his father. We cannot wait see you, and I, especially, miss your arms around me. Meet you at the train station, my darling. Love always, Margie'. 

Clarke feels a tear dribble down her cheek. She swipes it away and sniffles.

"Shit," Lexa breathes incredulously. 

"What do you think happened to them?" Clarke whispers, gazing down at the last letter still in Lexa's hands, then up at Lexa, who grins hopefully.

She turns to lock eyes with Clarke and replies, "I think they lived happily ever after."

And, indeed, as they make their way out of the house, Clarke notices one more portrait, framed neatly and hanging in the entryway, and time stamped August fifth, two-thousand twenty-six. It's a much better definition, colour photo of a different, much older dark-skinned woman with deep grey hair curled tightly against her head and standing behind a man in a wheelchair with her hands on his shoulders. They both shine wrinkled grins at the camera. The man in the wheelchair also has grey hair and the same eyes as the little boy from the photos in the box. 

In a black panel at the bottom of the photo, white letters read, 'Welcome to the world, little twins Delilah and Darby. With love, your Grandma Bev and Grandpa Hadley'.


	13. Mellifluous

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mellifluous  
> [muh-lif-loo-us]  
> -Adjective   
> 1\. Sweetly or smoothly flowing; sweet-sounding

Her voice rings throughout the chamber, an eery harmony to the rising sun.

They'd awoken early to hike down to the river and retrieve their fish traps. Now, after having collected the fish and dropped them off at the village kitchen, as the sky sets ablaze with the yellow promise of a new day, Lexa sits at the heavy oak table in her quarters reading an ancient tome of villanelles and elegies while Clarke cleans her hair in the bathroom with the door open.

Clarke's melancholic humming is freckled with some old language that Lexa doesn't recognise, but which transforms the blonde enchantress into a syren whose call could allure the most resistant of man. 

The words, though Lexa doesn't know what they mean, nor their significance, beckon her to the bathroom, where she unabashedly gazes at the woman in tub. 

From low to high she swings in her chant, "Síochána a bheith leat i gcogadh..." she pauses to breathe. "Téigh go crua faoi ghrá na hoíche." She holds the note, a brilliant, magenta warble fluttering above the clouds. "Filleadh ar an bua an oíche seo," she rolls her head back on her neck, gathering her hair, then continues, lower now on the scale. "Is breá a bheith na deartháireacha i do chuid arme, coinnigh daingean mo chara." Her voice becomes soft and low as a fog hiding within a jade canyon, heavy in its way, as she finishes the song, "Laghdaigh an rud."

Then only the tinkling droplets jumping from her hair into the sea below them hold captive the silence that threatens to envelope.

"What language is that?" Lexa murmurs, stooping at the side of the tub with her arms splayed across the edge and chin on her hands which lay palm-down.

"Icelandic," Clarke rasps, small smile tugging the corners of her magical, battle woven lips. "It's a song the Vikings, their warriors, would sing while marching into combat."

Lexa lets a hand drool into the tub, eyes in the halcyon water. She swirls a finger tip just beneath the surface, breaking its tension.

"What does it mean?" She whispers back. Her hair trembles down over her ear as she asks. Clarke tucks it back tenderly, leaving her digits tangled in the earth-brown tendrils.

"I can sing it again in English, if you want," the soaking woman replies. A bead of water dangles at the edge of her eyebrow. Everything is still outside of this moment, like muffled voices being translated to the energy that resides within all things. A sort of static without a sound. "It won't be as pretty."

Lexa nods. 

She starts the song again, this time with a faster tempo, possibly to inject the contrasting language into the hymnal beats.

"Peace be with you into war, go bravely under guise of light, return in victory this night," Clarke trills, brushing her fingers languidly through Lexa's raveled hair. "Love be the brothers in your arms, to hold tight my darling, lessen the plight."

Long after her voice fades out, the reverberation of her key remains sturdily in the air.

And as the heat rises with daybreak, Lexa soars through the serenity of Clarke's lingering tune.


	14. Nebulous

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I believe this is the shortest one.

Sometimes Clarke's eyes are bright blue like the sky right before the sun finishes heaving itself over the horizon at dawn. Sometimes, they're dark, like the winter night without the moon.

But every once in a while, the light hits those irises just right and they sparkle in purples and pinks and soft yellows and whites, just like the colours of the universe, like the gaseous clouds of antediluvian explosions that whiz through the spaces between orange suns and brown planets. Like a flashlight against the dark of a blackened room whose walls have been painted in splatters and strokes of disgraced glory. 

Lexa has yet to configure the words she wants to say into any cohesive sentences that could possibly be worthy of falling upon Clarke's ears. 

And she can't quite explain why, but those times that she sees nebulas in those eyes, she somehow finds herself feeling homesick.


	15. Ochre

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We love some makin out

Clarke watches Lexa's face, which hovers closely to her own as the Commander drags the coppery powder across her cheeks and forehead.

Lexa's fingers are deft and soft, eyes intense and focused. She is already painted.

"The traditional colour of the Commander's second is brown," Lexa explains in a hushed voice. Her words tumble across Clarke's mouth in puffs of humid air. "You are my equal, Klarke kom Skaikru. Your colour is that of a Commander."

Lexa's grey irises glimmer up at her. 

Clarke lifts her lips into a gracious smile.

"You are _my_ equal," Lexa repeats, even quieter, even closer. 

Clarke can see the cracks in the dusty greyish black of Lexa's warpaint - the streak across her eye, cutting off at her brows and scraping down in three lines at the bottom on either cheek. 

It makes her divine in a gruff sort of way. Imposing and stately, a ruler that leads the front line, not by sitting back in a box watching the action from above, but by marching arm in arm with her subjects.

"Damn right," Clarke replies just before her lips collide with Lexa's.

They kiss roughly and passionately with wandering hands. Clarke twists her fingers into Lexa's hair at the base of her skull and holds her there. Lexa swings her legs onto the bench that Clarke is sitting on, effectively putting her in Clarke's lap as she hooks her arm on Clarke's neck and pulls her ever closer. 

Lexa makes little noises in the back of her throat that send tingles from Clarke's lips straight to her nethers. 

Before it can get out of hand, they break away, breathing hard, and lean their foreheads together. 

"You are my equal, Leska kom Trikru," Clarke breathes. She rocks forward and plants a steadfast kiss on Lexa's lips. Then, with resolved fervour, she growls, "And we will be victorious together."


	16. Prayer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ever wondered where the Commander goes when they need advice from the past Commanders?

"What do I do?" Lexa pleads, shaking her head. She's greeted with somber silence. She surveys the horizon, heavy sun sinking beneath the ken where the fiery sky meets the caliginous ocean. Seagulls scream at her from the jagged rocks below where the water pulverises the cliff wall. Her legs dangle over the edge, but she doesn't feel scared. There's no need to. Nobody dies here. She whispers, soft as that thought, "Sometimes, I think you all made a mistake choosing me as the Commander."

This gets the other woman's attention.

Bekka snaps her head to the right to stare disapprovingly at Lexa.

"Do you doubt the judgement of your predecessors?" Bekka challenges, eyebrows hiding in her hairline.

"No, Pramheda," Lexa mutters, looking back up to the sunset. She meant no harm. Sometimes, she wants to say things she knows she'll regret while conscious, but it's hard for her to hold her tongue in this place, especially since she can't be harmed. "I feel lost. What is a Commander supposed to do when even her ancestors don't know?"

Bekka breathes in slowly and deliberately beside her, then releases it the same way. 

"Lexa, I may be the first Commander, but you are the Commander _now_ ," the older woman calmly explains. Then, to Lexa's great shock, Bekka turns and rests a gentle hand on Lexa's arm. She continues, eyes locked with Lexa's, "All that we can realistically do is give you advice based on when we were Commander. But whatever you do, you do as the current Commander, and that is the only thing that will push you through to the next issue. When you're a Commander, the problems don't stop and it's your responsibility to help solve them, and we can guide you in one direction or another, but our knowledge individually is never going to be as reliable as what you choose to be true." 

Lexa's eyes shine and twinkle. She gazes at her Pramheda in awe, fully understanding that she is right. 

"It just so happens," Bekka goes on, retreating to her usual demeanour, "that this time, we don't have enough experience collectively to adequately come to a single conclusion. Whichever path you choose to take, with what information we have given you, everything will work out. It always does."

Lexa nods, thinking of nothing more to say. 

In the distance, a muffled sound like a door opening and closing threatens to unlock her focus. She mostly ignores it, though the horizon wavers a bit. The colours around her remain bright.

That is, until Clarke's voice rings loud and clear through the sky, calling her name.

Just before she flickers out of existence, Lexa sees Bekka smiling slyly at her. She comes to, still cross legged on the floor at the end of her bed, blushing. 

Of course the ancestors know about her and Clarke. It's just mildly embarrassing how much they tease her about how big that crush is.

She looks up at Clarke, whose face is just inches from hers, concern swamping those sapphire eyes. 

"Hello, Clarke," she smiles. Feeling returns to her finger tips as she unfolds them from her knees and lifts them to Clarke's cheeks. "Did you need something?"

Clarke smirks and pushes her lips into Lexa's. The Commander sighs into the gentle but insistent press of Clarke's teeth against her bottom lip. 

When Clarke pulls away, Lexa nearly protests but remembers herself swiftly.

"Dinner in fifteen minutes," Clarke whispers, lovingly stroking Lexa's hair back. 

Lexa nods gratefully and replies, "I'll be there."

Clarke hesitates to stand back up from her crouched positions so Lexa scrunches her eyebrows inquisitively.

"I've walked in on you sitting like this a few times, but I wasn't sure if it was okay for me to ask why," Clarke says, sensing Lexa's worry. "It's almost like...you aren't even in your body."

Lexa chuckles breathily and tugs Clarke down to sit beside her.

"When I come across a problem regarding the safety of my people," Lexa starts, crossing her fingers with Clarke's and examining their interlocked hands, "and I can't see my own way to the best course of action, I ask the past Commanders. To contact them, I need to retrieve my consciousness and energy from the outside world and focus it inward. Kind of like...kind of like meditating. Or...praying." She retrains her focus on Clarke's face, eyes gentle. "But I talk to little people inside me while I do it."

Clarke giggles, grinning down at their hands, and responds, "Makes sense. Do you go, like...inside the flame?"

Lexa purses her lips outward and contemplates the question. Nods.

"Basically, yes," she answers. 

Clarke smiles sadly, "As long as you don't get lost in there."

Lexa snorts and leans her head against Clarke's shoulder.

Quietly, she assures her transcendentally wonderful love, "I won't. I can find my way out, I promise."

She always does.


	17. Quixotic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Quixotic  
> [kwik-sot-ik]  
> -Adjective  
>  1\. Extravagantly chivalrous or romantic; visionary or impractical.

She breathes out shakily and wipes her sweaty palms down her skirt as she surveys the set up, making sure she's not missing any last touches.

Clarke will be here in five minutes and Lexa is more nervous than she's ever been in her life. 

A real date. With actual romance and shit.

She never saw herself doing something like this. But for Clarke, she'd do anything to impress. Even wear a dress and light candles and make food all by herself. Because she's never been more sure of her feelings. And she rarely feels doubt, so that really says something, she thinks.

Someone raps lightly on the giant wooden door. 

"Lexa? The guards told me to come up here; they sounded weird. Is something wrong?" Clarke's voice through the door sounds out with concern. 

Lexa blows air through her nose and makes her way to the door. Opens it.

Clarke's face is marred by anxiety, and she begins to say something. But then she notices the glowing ambience over Lexa's shoulder and gasps softly, bringing her hand up to her heart.

Lexa gauges her reaction as Clarke steps into the room. The twitching candle flames sparkle in her cobalt eyes, reflecting back into Lexa's knotting stomach. 

Clarke breathes out in stunned wonder, turning around on her heel and gracing Lexa with her astonishment. 

"Lexa," she bubbles, voice sending tingles to the tips of Lexa's fingers. "You did all this?"

Lexa nods humbly, cheeks turning hot and dark grey. 

Clarke strides back to her where she still stands at the door, snakes her arms around Lexa's waist, and squeezes her tight, resting her cheek on Lexa's shoulder.

The Commander reacts without pause, slinging her own arms around Clarke's shoulders and burying her face in messy blonde hair.

"Thank you," Clarke murmurs against Lexa's neck, shooting shivers down the older woman's spine.

"Food's gonna get cold if we stand here much longer," Lexa laughs softly, forgetting herself when Clarke grunts in response. She pries herself away to place a kiss on Clarke's forehead. "Come on, I worked all day on this."

Clarke lets Lexa lead her to the table where a wild boar steams on a silver plate in all its crispy brown glory and a plethora of fruits, vegetables, breads, and champagnes speckle the white-clothed table. Nestled in silver candlesticks, two beige columns of wax melt themselves away beneath yellow flame.

Lexa takes a seat but her blonde counterpart remains standing for a second longer to admire the extravagant arrangement, playing her fingers along the rough tablecloth and across the shiny plates. 

"This is beautiful," she mumbles, then switches her gaze to Lexa. She flops into her chair, scoots herself in, takes Lexa's hand, and kisses her knuckles gently. And in the effervescent aura of the burning wicks, hushed upon Clarke's tongue roll the words, "I love you."


	18. Raze

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> AU where Lexa wasn't shot by Titus and stays behind when Clarke and the others go to Becca's bunker to figure out nightblood.

The blast consumes her in fire and blisters, and though bloodied, barely breathing, fading in and out of consciousness on the barren floor of Becca's bunker, all Clarke can think about is whether Lexa is safe.

If she managed to find cover before the supersonic rings of force could knock her out.

Clarke knows, logically, Lexa will survive the radiation. She saw it with her own eyes with Luna. But there won't be any radiation _to_ survive if she wasn't able to protect herself from the fatal impact of the nuclear meltdown. 

Just before she passes out for the next fourteen hours, or so she'll learn when she wakes up entirely unscathed with no evidence she was ever exposed to radiation, her last thought is of Lexa's face, scorched and unmoving.

\--

She's been searching for Lexa for three months. Madi has slowly been letting her guard down and at one point, crawled right up to Clarke's giant map pinned down to the table in one of the contrastingly tiny houses, peeking her eyes up over the edge and curiously examining what Clarke was doing.

Clarke had only smiled and let the child run her palms over the paper. They aren't necessarily on speaking terms yet, but Clarke is hopeful.

Today, Clarke is trekking south. She'd rather Madi stay in the village in the forest, hidden away from the pelting glass storms and unrelenting heat, but it's not like she can force the girl to stay. She checks over her shoulder again to find the kid only a few feet behind her, peering ahead at the debris of another unrecognisable city. Everything destroyed. Even the things that remained after the first bombs.

Clarke smirks and continues along her path, walking stick slamming into the blinding sand with each step, thick scarf fluttering in the light wind. 

As she approaches the ruins, something on the horizon stops her dead in her tracks. Madi slams into her legs from the back and scrambles away in surprise. Clarke mutters a half-hearted apology, attention still caught on the hazy silhouette in the distance. As always the child doesn't respond.

Without turning around, Clarke gently commands, "Madi, stay behind me."

As if she would do anything else. Just to be sure. 

Clarke timidly passes the threshold of the circle of crumbled buildings, always keeping her eye on the figure just past the fog. It moves erratically, not like the torn relics of a flag blowing or a lonely skyscraper foundation beam swaying. More like...a human. Clarke can only hope. And maybe she shouldn't.

As she breaches the cloud of filmy, radiation-soaked murk, the figure pauses, seeming to notice her. She backs away when it starts walking, then jogging toward her. 

Just when she's about to throw Madi over her shoulder and take off in the direction she came, a hesitant, familiar face comes into focus.

Clarke's heart leaps into her throat. 

"Lexa," she gasps, stoked in disbelief. 

Lexa's eyes are wide and her mouth moves but she doesn't speak. 

Without another word, Clarke drops her stick and pack on the ground and sprints at the other woman, jumps into her arms and sobs with incomprehensible relief.

"Oh my god, Lexa," she blubbers, voice hoarse from disuse and crying. "I've been looking for you for months, I can't believe I found you, I finally found you."

Hot tears streak her dirt-stained face and even when Lexa finally breaks, a howl of incredulity slipping past her lips, Clarke refuses to let go.

It isn't until Madi tugs on Clarke's jacket that she remembers where she is.

She reluctantly pulls away, but keeps her hands on Lexa's cheeks, still dubious that this is real life.

Lexa notices the little girl and, with hopeful eyes, silently questions Clarke. 

The blonde smiles gallantly.

"Lexa," she says, "meet Madi. A nightblood."


	19. Selfish

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TW: su*cide, major character death

Polis's tower is magnificent; strong and beautiful and unwavering. Often, Clarke cowers at the raw power of the ancient skyscraper. 

But today, she overcame her fear of it toppling. She climbed to the top. And now she stands at the edge of the roof, numb in her heart, and looks out over the devastation that stretches well beyond her field of vision, starting just past the outskirts of the re-colonised, rebuilt city. 

The wind gusts angrily against her spine, tilting her forward just barely. She lets it.

She came up here for one reason anyway. Gun is too loud. Knife is too messy. Rope is too complicated. Pills are too selfish. Jumping leaves little behind. And it's so easy. 

She could just...step off. 

She's thought about it before - killing herself. Debated it over and over. She hasn't got much left here. With Lexa dead at the hands of Titus, most people adamantly keeping herself in bad name on their tongues, and her mother preoccupied with keeping the medical community together, what is there for her? 

Her hair flies up on either side of her face, masking her periphery.

It's okay. There's nothing to see anyway. There's no light strong enough to penetrate her impending dark future. She was doomed from the start to be blinded by her own wants. She's self-absorbed, so caught up in her own feelings that she rarely sees what others need. 

For too long, she's thought herself a martyr. The victim of terrible things that keep happening _to_ her. 

It wasn't until this morning that she realised how ridiculous she's been. She was so selfish she didn't even understand that she was _being_ selfish; so selfish that she lost self-awareness. 

She's the only reason these bad things keep happening. She brings it on herself. She is the one that decides to make or let these things happen. She's no victim. She's no martyr.

She's a killer.

With that final recognition of all she's at fault for, she sucks in a long breath of chilled stratospheric air. 

Closes her eyes.

And jumps.


	20. Truthfully

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Because Lexa's feelings about Finn after he died were never discussed.
> 
> I especially like this one because I feel like it's unique especially since the show never really went over this topic. Also it's just really cute. Also Clexa bonding over tragedy is my angsty fluff dream.

Lexa sighs, frustrated.

"If you want your hair to be done, you need to quit moving," she chides, readjusting Clarke's head. "I can't twist your hair properly when you're yanking it out of my hand."

Clarke mutters an apology and pulls her legs to her chest, wrapping her pale arms around them.

"You know I'm perfectly capable of doing my own hair, right?" Clarke teases, chin brushing her knees as she speaks.

"Oh, I'm aware," Lexa replies shortly, smirking. "You just don't do it very well."

"Oooh, oh okay," Clarke feigns offense, trying not to make her head move by laughing. "And you're so much better at _doing_ _hair_ , Commander," she holds each syllable of the word on the edge of her tongue for a second, attempting to point out that Lexa is a leader, not a hair stylist. Then again, Clarke, herself, is just a medic.

"Mhm," Lexa hums lightly. Clarke can hear the smile in her tone. "That's because I've been doing this my whole life." She leans down and presses her lips to Clarke's ear, adding mockingly, softly, "When have you ever needed to do anything with your hair, _Prenkisa_."

Clarke shivers at the nickname. It's what Finn called her. Princess. Somehow, it tastes so much sweeter coming out of Lexa's mouth. 

"You got me there," Clarke muses. She picks at a spot on her rough, ripped up pants. The memory of Finn still rattles her. It's been twelve years and she still kicks herself for what she did. There wasn't much other choice, though. And she thinks, sometimes, Lexa regrets it too. But then, she would never have fallen for Lexa if things had gone differently. What would she think of the Commander had Clarke let them torture him? Certainly she wouldn't be sitting between Lexa's spectacular calves as the postured woman twists and braids her blonde hair away from her face. And certainly she wouldn't be falling more in love with each finger stroke. "Hey, Lexa?"

"Mm?" 

Clarke, already rueing her big mouth, only blinks for a second. If she recoils and tells Lexa to 'nevermind', the Commander won't let her go until she says what she was going to say. And yet again, she's put herself in the position of having a singular option to choose from, all of her own volition.

She sighs, and throws all caution to the wind.

"Do you ever think about Finn?" 

Lexa's fingers become dead still. Anxiety stabs its claws straight through Clarke's stomach and tears it from her ribcage. She's pretty sure Lexa may be able to hear her heartbeat.

After a terrifying eternity of silence, Lexa's voice comes quietly, somber, "Yes. I do."

Ignoring all of Lexa's previous protests about moving, Clarke twists herself around and rests her chin on the top of Lexa's thigh.

Lexa frowns, eyes swelling with tears, as she runs her hand back over Clarke's hair, the top of which is curled expertly back in two rows coiled tightly against her head. 

"I'm sorry," Clarke murmurs, sliding her arms around Lexa's leg. "I shouldn't have asked."

"I'm glad you did," Lexa whispers. "You deserve to know that I feel remorse. You loved him. I murdered him."

Clarke wrenches herself away, face screwed up in shock and confusion. 

"Lexa, no...you didn't," Clarke asserts. "I killed him. Me. I made that decision to do that--"

"You wouldn't have had to if I hadn't insisted blood must have blood," Lexa maintains. She blinks rapidly, not meeting Clarke's eyes. "You did what you had to to save him from us. I didn't give you any other choice."

To that, Clarke can't say a thing. Lexa makes a good point. And Clarke feels terrible for agreeing.

Instead, she pushes herself up, crawls into Lexa's lap, and buries her face in Lexa's neck, breathing in the scent of her hair.

Lexa gladly cradles her, hooking her arms around Clarke's waist and leaning her head against Clarke's.

"I'm relieved it happened the way it did," Clarke admits, voice stifled by Lexa's skin. "I'm scared to think about what would've happened to me and you if it hadn't."

"You never would've forgiven me," Lexa remarks sullenly, thumbs tracing lines in Clarke's back. "Would it be wrong of me to say I think it was meant to happen that way?"

Clarke's lips tug upward into a small, placated smile, and she hugs Lexa even closer, nuzzling her nose against Lexa's pulse and closing her eyes.

"Absolutely not."


	21. Undone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> CW: not necessarily non-consenting, just lack of asking first. Always ask before touching anyone in any way. Consent is key.

"Hate these damn things," Lexa grumbles, squirming against the ribbing of her corset. "Why do I wear them, again?"

Clarke snickers from behind her. Lexa rolls her eyes dramatically. 

"Why are you asking _me_? I came from outer space. You're the expert on grounder culture," Clarke answers teasingly.

"Evidently not," Lexa mutters, trying to find the strings in the back to untie it. 

Without a word, Clarke sneaks up behind her and takes the ribbon in her nimble fingers. 

"Let me," she bubbles eagerly.

Lexa smirks, watching Clarke over her shoulder in the mirror. She crosses her arms over her chest while Clarke skillfully unweaves the criss-cross strings and loosens the corset as she goes. 

Lexa is content to sit in silence, just admiring her lovely princess hard at work, but Clarke is not so patient. Which is fine by Lexa. She loves Clarke for all her flaws and perfections and everything in between, and can't exactly blame her for being so restless - it's how Clarke grew up. She had a lot more to do up in space than they have down here.

"Part of it, you see," Clarke grunts, tugging on the fabric, "is how tightly it's being tied in the first place. You could hide a baby belly with how tight you've got this."

"Hey, I'm a Commander, not a fashion stylist," Lexa shoots back, fake huffing.

Clarke giggles as she finally reaches the last loop and pulls it loose. 

But instead of backing away to let Lexa unhook the front so she can take it off at last, Clarke wraps her arms around Lexa's waist and plants feathery kisses behind Lexa's ear.

Despite clearly loving this, as she tilts her head to let Clarke do what she will, Lexa sounds a cautionary groan, "Clarke, we don't have time."

Clarke only hums against her heating skin. Lexa's heart responds by pounding away behind bars of bone and sending black blood rushing between her legs. 

Slowly, torturously, Clarke unhooks each clasp in tandem with a taunting kiss at Lexa's throat, jaw, shoulder, anywhere she can reach. 

And by the time Clarke has finally wrestled the corset away from Lexa's body, the Commander feels herself soaking wet and tingling with suspense.

She whips around and attacks Clarke's face, walking her backward to the bed and shoving her down, hard. 

"Rude," Clarke mocks, sitting up on her elbows. She lifts her butt up so Lexa can yank those stupid pants off. "But hot. I'm into it."

Lexa growls, climbing on top of Clarke like an animal playing with its prey. Fabric flies off of all body parts and lands haphazardly elsewhere in the room and Lexa is too busy squeezing Clarke's hips and racing her tongue down Clarke's chest to really care.

Without much warning, because she's impatient and fiery and she knows damn well that's just how Clarke likes her, she throws Clarke's legs over her shoulders and plunges her tongue into Clarke's sex, restraining the younger woman from wriggling. 

Clarke's gasps and moans are so good, Lexa can't stop herself from riding her own fingers with fervour, fretting her own moans into Clarke's pussy. 

"Lexa," Clarke breathes, digging her fingers into the back of Lexa's neck. And when Lexa responds by moving her tongue to Clarke's clit and slipping her free fingers into Clarke's hole, the blonde woman squeaks out an incomprehensible string of praise, toes curling into fists against Lexa's back. "Oh, god, Lexa, fuck fuck fuck, please, Lexa, more."

Broken sentences sprinkled with obscenities fly from Clarke's lips as her hands fist the furs beneath them into sweaty balls of fabric.

Lexa is just on the edge when she makes Clarke come, and she thinks Clarke can tell just from the way she moves because Clarke drags her up by the waist and settles Lexa on top of her face.

Clarke's tongue does magical things, flicking against her clit and working her hole open and spreading miraculous heat up and down her labia. She rocks herself against the feeling, grasping Clarke's hands which hold down her thighs.

Then, much more quietly than Clarke, she chokes in cracked breaths of air as she comes hard, legs hitching and spine bending at an agonising angle.

When she swings herself off of Clarke, the blonde is smiling audaciously. 

"You're a little priss, you know that?" Lexa slurs, bending in to shove her tart-flavoured tongue into Clarke's similarly tangy mouth. "Always get what you want."

"Mhm," Clarke replies. "Don't you forget it."


	22. Valour

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The stories of Lexa's battle scars

Clarke feathers her fingertips over an older one, feeling every bump and dip.

She lies behind Lexa, bare naked, covered just enough by furs, with her arm bent beneath her head on the pillow and her other hand tracing Lexa's bare back.

She loves the scars. Every one of them. 

They remind her of how Lexa isn't just a leader, a Commander, the authority above all to the Trigedaskru, but also a warrior. She's strong, relentless, dauntless, clever. Sometimes Clarke forgets about these things, because the side of Lexa that she sees is so juxtaposed. Gentle, merciful, sheepish, forgetful. 

Really a wonderous contrast. And to tie all of it up in a neat bow, Lexa is also physically gorgeous in every way. Clarke often reminds her that what Lexa thinks are flaws don't necessarily have to be. She usually does this by exploring Lexa's skin to find new scars she hasn't heard the story about yet.

"This one?" Clarke murmurs, following her finger along a scar that bends to the right, then back to straight in the middle, and runs from the cap of Lexa's left shoulder to just below her armpit.

The swell of Lexa's cheek as she smiles amusedly comes before her sleepy voice, replying, "That one doesn't count. It's not from a battle. I got it when I was a little kid, playing in the river. I got swept up into a strong current for a few seconds, couldn't control where my body went, kept trying to grab hold of something, and ended up impaling my shoulder on a sharp rock. Nothing special."

Clarke blows a raspberry of disapproval, weaving her brows low.

"Nothing special?!" She exclaims, sitting herself up on her arm. "I never got to play in a river and cut myself on a rock when I was a kid."

"That's hardly a fair comparison. You lived on a giant machine in space," Lexa retorts, not turning around. "Besides, every grounder ever has played in a river and gotten stabbed by rocks or gotten sticks shoved through their arm. At this point, it should be considered initiation."

Clarke squints at the side of Lexa's face, smiles, shakes her head subtly, and lays back down on her side, arm in her hair.

"Okay, then what about this one?" 

A pearly white line of scar tissue interrupting the warm honey skin where Lexa's fourth rib meets her spine, almost perfectly severing the two from each other.

"That was my second real battle with an enemy when I was ten," Lexa replies wistfully. Nostalgia seeps through the cracks in her lips as she remembers the exact time and place, regaling it to Clarke. "The best part was that I didn't even realise I'd been injured until we were all back in Polis and someone said something about blood on the back of my top."

Clarke is momentarily mortified by the fact that Lexa was in actual battle by the age of ten, but quickly composes herself - down here, they thought they had no other option. It was the way they did things for a whole century. To the grounders, sending a ten year old to fight with real swords and arrows and spears was the norm. Sometimes, Clarke forgets herself like this. Forgets she had it easy, growing up in space, away from the unpredictable dangers and carnage of the ground. The people down here did what they had to in order to survive. She can't keep feeling shock or horror every time she learns something about them. The cultures just aren't the same. 

"Any from your first one?" Clarke inquires lightly. She pulls herself closer so her chest is heated against Lexa's back.

"No. I mean, except for the kill marks, but those are different," Lexa mumbles, half asleep. "Really, that was one of the proudest moments of my life. When I came out of my first battle without a single mark on me. I think that when people really knew I was and started expecting me to be the next Commander. Coming out of your very first battle as a child unscathed is considered one of the highest accomplishments."

Clarke nods, though well aware Lexa can't see her. 

"Ever counted them all?" Clarke questions quietly. She's counted at least twenty on Lexa's back alone. She can't imagine how many she has on her entire body.

"Not including kill marks?" Lexa deliberates for a second, tilting her head just slightly. "More than one-hundred-fifty," she says plainly. Thinks, then adds, "Above the thighs. I've never counted on my legs." 

Clarke huffs out an incredulous breath.

She traces the edges of the smattering of round, rice sized scars on the right side of Lexa's lower back. 

These are Clarke's favourite. The way Lexa got them and what they mean. She's made Lexa tell her the story five thousand times. What's once more?

"These ones," Clarke requests simply.

Lexa chuckles softly and finally rolls over to face her. Twists her legs with Clarke's and settles in with a huff.

"You know, you could probably tell that story word for word on your own by now," Lexa snarks.

"I like hearing you tell it," Clarke expresses, lashes fluttering. She twists a piece of Lexa's loose hair around her finger. "It sounds...more important...coming from you."

Lexa sighs out a small smile and shakes her head, but surrenders anyway.

"It was dawn on a dark, rainy day in the mountains," she begins effectually. "I was fourteen, leading a charge of soldiers into the water surrounding the dam that the Mountain Men used to power their mountain. We scaled the sheer walls and climbed into the openings and snuck through the winding tunnels. Just when we were about to force our way in through the body chute, the reapers found us. They ran after us as we retreated, but something didn't seem right to me. When I took a closer look, the Mountain Men were there with them, running after us, too. The Mountain Men had guns. I made sure everyone in my charge was safe in the water below before I jumped. I got the second to last person over the waterfall just as the Mountain Men rounded the corner. 

"When I looked back at them, they fired their guns. I jumped in front of last person so the bullets wouldn't hit her. I shoved her over just as I landed in front of her. One of the bullets, made out of stone pellets, hit me in the back. It sent me tumbling over the waterfall so I couldn't control how I was falling, and when I hit the water, I blacked out. When I woke up, I was being carried over someone's shoulder and we were almost back to the village. My mission had failed and I felt like I had failed as a Commander. But the girl who I jumped in front of brought everyone from that mission together in front of me because they all agreed in private that what I had done was braver than anything they'd seen. 

"All of them thanked me for saving their lives. The girl I jumped in front of was one of our youngest soldiers, a nine year old. She told me she was grateful to me for making sure she was able to get home to her father because she was all he had. She's almost eighteen now and she has a baby of her own. She reminds me every day that if I hadn't saved her life, she wouldn't be here today," Lexa finishes softly, still so uplifted by the words of that younger girl. 

Clarke watches her with sparkly eyes and red cheeks. 

Hearing that story is all it ever takes for Clarke to never forget that Lexa is so much more than just a Commander.

She is a warrior.


	23. Welcome

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What if Clarke never made it out of the flame alive?

It worked. She shut A.L.I.E. down.

There's just one problem.

That was two days ago, and she hasn't woken up.

After she shut the AI down, she remained on the fabricated version of the thirteenth station for a few minutes as progressively weirder things started happening. First, the fake earth disappeared, leaving only the blank space where it should be to fill with stars. Next, A.L.I.E. got scrubbed away, as if she were physically being erased, line by line. Then, the ship around her and Becca faded away into a bright white eternity of nothingness all around them. Finally, Becca turned to her slowly, smiled warmly, and extended her hand. 

Clarke took it. 

The moment she touched Becca's skin, millions of familiar colours and shapes flickered into existence and filled her vision, overwhelming her every sense, for just a millisecond, flinging her off balance. She passed out.

When she awoke, she was lying in soft, tall grass that swayed with a gentle breeze and the sun was singing down at her from a cloudless, blue sky. She smiled and rubbed her eyes.

She felt content in this oddly serene environment that she didn't recognise.

Somehow, she knew she had to stand up and walk in a specific direction.

She's been walking for two days now, only stopping to take in the scenery around her. She doesn't feel hungry or tired. She doesn't run out of energy. Something is very, very off but she somehow can't find a reason to be upset or uneasy. Somehow she just knows that it's okay, that she's safe, that she has no need to hide or be afraid.

And finally, she reaches the edge of a peaceful settlement, where there stands less than fifteen buildings, most of which seem to be cottages. To her right is a magnificent view of the ocean, though she's not sure which, over the edge of a cliff. To her left is a breathtaking view of the territory below, where purple mountains overlook a lush, green forest and indescribable birds that she has never seen before and could never imagine existed take off from the treetops. 

In the centre of the tiny village in front of her is a large table crowded with food and wrapped gifts, and surrounded by intricate, throne-like chairs, each a different material with different symbols on top of them, and standing proudly over the table is a banner that she can't quite read.

She makes her way toward the setup - she doesn't feel endangered. In fact, she feels welcome and warm, like the table is calling to her.

When she reaches the table, she finds a glorious, throne-like chair with her name carved into the back. The chair is made of bits and pieces of scrap metal and the back and butt cushion is what Clarke immediately recognises as one of the seats from the drop ship she came to earth in. The dull, metallic spires lining the top twist and bend to create a star, indicating Skaikru. 

She runs her hand along the sleek surface of the throne's armrest. 

The banner, now in focus, reads in scrawling, loopy letters of a handwriting she's well acquainted with, 'Welcome Home, Clarke'.

It is Lexa's handwriting.

As Clarke grins up at the banner, she realises exactly where she is. She's inside the flame. And as she realises this, a familiar voice speaks up from behind her.

"Clarke," Lexa beams. "I've been waiting for you."


	24. Xenolith

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Xenolith  
> [zen-il-ith]  
> -noun  
>  1\. A fragment (usually rock) foreign to that which it is embedded in

"Soooo," the young girl tuts her heel into the dirt. Lexa watches her with a smirk. She reminds Lexa of herself when she was just a young Commander. "How long did you like Clarke before you kissed her?"

She's put off by the question.

New Commanders rarely come to their predecessors for such personal questions.

But then, this new girl did take all of them by surprise when she showed up to be initiated a few months ago. 

When Lexa died, there were only a few nightbloods left in the entire population of Trigedaskru, including Luna. But this girl resembled none of them. She'd never seen or heard of this girl before. 

The girl introduced herself as Madi, the only remaining nightblood on Earth, as far as she could tell. Madi then regaled the events of the several years after Lexa died, some of which was second hand experience acquired from Clarke, whom Lexa was ecstatic to hear was alive and well. Madi told her all about how the evil Azgeda woman, Ontari, slaughtered Lexa's initiates and about Luna's death, and the bunker that she and Clarke tried to get into but couldn't, and everything that came after up until she made it to the initiation plane of The Flame.

Now Madi just keeps her updated on daily things, like Clarke and the clans. 

And, evidently, sometimes asks questions that take Lexa off guard because Madi wasn't trained into this life like other nightbloods so the mannerisms are maybe a little foreign to her.

"What's it to you?" Lexa quizzes, popping up a brow and side-eyeing the young woman.

Madi giggles, child she still is, and proclaims, "I deserve know! Clarke is basically my mother, which makes you my other mom. And parents tell their kids how they met and stuff like that. And since you're like my parent, that means you have a responsibility to tell me all of Clarke's secrets. Wouldn't you say?"

Lexa can't help but snort at the ridiculous fodder of the young girl. Rather endearing, she has to admit. And somehow smartly compelling.

"As much as I'd love to tell you about how Clarke has a birthmark on her butt, I'd rather you ask Clarke, herself, about Clarke's business," Lexa laughs. Her smile turns soft and she examines Madi's face. "But, you are right about one thing. I would certainly consider you my child."

Madi grins at this, crossing her arms over her chest.

They've gotten so close over the past weeks that Lexa genuinely feels Clarke's connection to this girl. It's strong and focused. It's sort of like the one she felt Clarke had to her. When that woman loves, she loves hard. 

"So does this mean you won't tell me?" Madi breaks the silence.

With a wholehearted laugh and an arm around Madi's shoulders, Lexa replies simply, "Someday, I'll tell you all about it, kid."


	25. Years

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time and the keeping of time has long been of the utmost importance to humankind. It helps us keep track of things like historical finds, eras, when influential people lived, what certain things mean to the timeline, what existed at what period, and many other things. So when society as we know it disappears, along with everything we deem important regarding time and history, what would happen to the concept that we believe is so simple, that we take for granted? Something that's part of our everyday lives?

"So...you kept track of time in three-hundred sixty-five day increments," Lexa tries slowly, finding it difficult to wrap her head around this whole thing, "and...that was based on...how long it took for the earth to rotate the sun one time?"

"Yes," Clarke replies simply, obviously starting to get impatient. 

She's been trying to explain calendars and time keeping to Lexa for the last two hours with little improvement. 

But it's not Lexa's fault. The grounders have no need to keep track of time in such a way. The only way they record the passage of time is by age, growth, and current Commander. Those are the only truly significant things that warrant recording. She's never had to think about time in such a rigid way.

"Okay, and that's called a year," she continues, scribbling it down on the paper she finally grabbed when she became frustrated with how complicated this whole thing is. "And months...are...well, for some reason they all have different amounts of days, but one of them has an extra day every four years because...um..." Lexa huffs and drops her quill, flopping back in her chair. "I'm lost again."

Clarke visibly restrains herself from rolling her eyes. 

Lexa pulls her lips sideways as she processes all the new information.

A second is one thousand milliseconds. A minute is sixty seconds. An hour is similarly sixty minutes. She can't quite understand why they went with sixty instead of one hundred but she's sure it has something to do with some other complex science regarding time. She's not even sure who would take the time to actually measure something so trivial and then make it so meaningful. 

_Ha._ _Take_ _the_ _time,_ she thinks bitterly.

A day is twenty four hours, which she knows is because that's how long it takes the earth to spin on its axis one full time. But who even determined what a millisecond or a minute or an hour meant in the first place? Crazy people who wanted everyone else to go crazy with them?

Seven days is a week. What's the point of a week anyway? Fifty-two weeks is a year. What a strange number. All of them are strange, random numbers. 

Lexa thinks that humans invented the construct of such things as time just so they could fill it with folly activities. Like making up more new modes of time.

Ten years is a decade. Three decades is a generation. Three generations and a decade is a century. A century is how long Clarke's people were up in space. And about how long it feels like Clarke has had her head down on the table out of pure annoyance. 

Ten centuries is a millennium. And eternity is immeasurable. Also known as how long it will take Lexa to understand any of this.

"Clarke, cut me some slack," Lexa mutters, folding her legs up under herself in the uncomfortable wooden chair. "I never even heard of any of this until you told me. Grounders stopped keeping track of time ages ago."

Clarke groans and rolls her forehead against the table, creating a thumping type of sound as the muscles under her skin hit the hard surface. 

"I'm sorry," her muffled voice sounds from beneath her splayed hair. She sits up, cheek red from being squished against the wood. "I didn't mean to make it seem like I was annoyed by you. I'm just tired, I promise. I get cranky when I haven't slept for so long."

Lexa takes Clarke's hand gently without thinking, because she's a caretaker by nature, and tugs Clarke out of the chair and over to the bed. She lays Clarke down, crawls beneath the covers with her, and combs Clarke's hair away from her sallow, exhausted face. 

"You need rest," Lexa commands lamely, as if it weren't obvious. "So do I, after all that."

Clarke snorts and slams a hand over her mouth. Silent laughter shakes the bed.

Lexa wraps Clarke's body in her arms and rests her chin on Clarke's head. The blonde woman relaxes quickly into Lexa's embrace, sighing her relief.

"Hmm," Clarke hums, nuzzling her face into Lexa's chest. "That's a good idea."

"How long do we have?" Lexa whispers, unsure of Clarke's schedule for the next day.

To her glee (and simultaneously, educational dismay), Clarke replies, "We can stay here as long as you want. Time doesn't exist with you."

Lexa agrees. With Clarke's warm body snuggled against hers, and the smell of Clarke's hair in her nostrils and the touch of Clarke's bare skin where it brushes her own, how can she not agree?

She'd love to stay just like this, forever. 


	26. Zoic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> -zoic  
> [zoh-ik]  
> -suffix  
>  1\. Used to form adjectives pertaining to a particular manner of animal existence.
> 
> Because sometimes, you just have to use a word part instead of a word.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp, here we are again, at the last fic of another ABC drabbles work. 
> 
> I know what you're thinking: "don't leave us again!!" And also probably "how do you post these so quickly"
> 
> Well I've got your answers: I can assure you I am not leaving again. At least, not for long. I'm beginning my career in writing and need fanfiction for writing exercises! So you'll definitely be hearing from me with each new fic. Secondly, I have OCD. That doesn't mean much without context. My OCD makes it so my writing process goes in the order of me figuring out a prompt or idea, writing the whole thing, editing it by chapter, then posting all of it at once. So yeah. Anyway, here ya go!

Clarke peeks over at Lexa again, sly smile growing. Lexa lowers her brows over her eyes and squints back. 

Somewhere overhead, a bird chirps out a tune.

They stare each other down over their canvases. 

Just an hour earlier, they agreed to a drawing contest when Lexa made a remark about how she's not even an artist but she could probably draw an animal better than Clarke could because Clarke grew up in space and Lexa grew up on the ground around actual animals. Clarke took it as a challenge, grabbed two large pieces of sketching paper and some charcoal, and dragged Lexa's sorry ass out to the woods where they sat and waited for an animal to come along so Clarke could prove her girlfriend wrong.

After about fifteen minutes of silently waiting and passive aggressive hand-holding, a fox with five legs and two tails wandered along with three babies in tow, each of which had some kind of surplus extremity, and they all sat down in the clearing in front of Clarke and Lexa, perfectly curling up beneath one of the trees.

They've been drawing for about half an hour, pausing to give each other provoking glances and dirty looks. 

They love each other, but sometimes their competitive personalities get a little carried away.

After an hour, Clarke finally finishes and sets her charcoal down slowly and deliberately, so that Lexa can see that she's done. 

Breaking the silence, and, in turn, scaring the foxes away, Lexa tilts her head and asks lightly, "Oh, did you just finish? I've been done for a while."

"Yeah, right," Clarke snipes back. The last of the baby fox tails disappear into the foliage over Lexa's shoulder. "Show each other on three?"

Lexa nods curtly and gets her hands ready on the top and bottom of the paper.

Together, they count, "One...two...three!"

And when the drawings are revealed, both are stunned by the beauty they didn't anticipate in the other's. 

"Wow," Clarke remarks humbly. "That's...actually really amazing."

"I'm loath to say, but so is yours," Lexa replies.

"How are we ever gonna decide a winner?" Clarke quips suggestively. 

Lexa catches the intent in her voice and responds in kind with a shrug, "Kissing contest?"

The blonde woman lets loose a maniacal smile, sets her drawing down, and grabs Lexa by the arm. 

They slam together between their stand-in easels and fall into the grass, laughing. 

They never do figure out who's drawing was better. 


End file.
